Open Knowledge festival to be held in Helsinki in September

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A week-long festival will bring about 500 representatives of the Open Knowledge movement to Helsinki in mid-September.
      The movement comprises various groups pushing for greater openness in information, decision-making, and research.
      One simple example of open knowledge is the free access to public transport schedule information on the website of the City of Helsinki. These schedules have been used in mobile telephone applications which allow users calculate the fastest routes between two points in the city.
     
The Open Knowledge Foundation, which is based in Britain, has invited 13 different movements to Helsinki.
      During the festival there will be an “Open Sauna Project”, in which Finnish companies are encouraged to invite foreign participants to their corporate saunas as a way of further developing Finland’s traditional sauna diplomacy.
     
The key guest at the festival is Hans Rosling from Sweden, a statistician who has developed the visualisation of statistics, and has been placed on the list of the world’s 100 most influential people by Time magazine.
      A lecture by Rosling on YouTube has seen watched millions of viewers.
       The main sponsors of the event are Helsingin Sanomat, IBM, and the Finnish Innovation Fund SITRA.


Links:
  Open Knowledge Festival, Helsinki, 17-22 Sept. 2012

Helsingin Sanomat